An addiction counselor with a professional license is facing sentencing on Wednesday for providing the ketamine that resulted in the death of “Friends” actor Matthew Perry.
The prosecution is advocating for a 2.5-year prison sentence for Erik Fleming, aged 56, who is one of five individuals who admitted guilt in relation to the actor’s 2023 demise in the Jacuzzi of his Los Angeles residence.
Fleming facilitated Perry’s contact with Jasveen Sangha, a convicted drug dealer whom prosecutors dubbed “The Ketamine Queen.” Sangha received a 15-year prison sentence last month.
Fleming’s defense team is proposing a lighter sentence of three months in prison followed by nine months in a residential drug treatment program, highlighting in a memo that Fleming has made significant efforts to make amends for his actions.
Upon being approached by investigators, Fleming immediately revealed Sangha’s involvement and, in August 2024, became the first to plead guilty to distributing ketamine resulting in death, even before any arrests were made public in the case.
Fleming is set to be the fourth individual sentenced in this case in front of Judge Sherilyn Peace Garnett at the Los Angeles federal courtroom, marking his initial court appearance since his involvement was publicly disclosed.
Prosecutors said in their sentencing memo that while Fleming’s exceptional cooperation should bring a lighter sentence, his role as a drug counselor who “deliberately undertook to sell illegal street drugs to a victim who had a public, well-documented battle with drug addiction” should count against him, even if Perry wasn’t one of his regular clients.
Perry had been receiving ketamine treatments for depression — an increasingly common off-label use.
A few weeks before his death, Perry was seeking more of the drug than he could get through doctors and asked a friend to help him get more. She was in a treatment facility, so introduced Perry to Fleming.
He was a former film and television producer whose career had been ravaged by addiction. He got sober and became a drug counselor, but had relapsed after the 2023 death of a beloved stepmother who had rescued him from a traumatic childhood, his lawyers said.
Fleming would get ketamine from Sangha, mark up the price to make a profit, and deliver it to Perry’s house where he sold it to the actor’s live-in personal assistant Kenneth Iwamasa.
“I procured ketamine for Matthew Perry because I wanted the money and because I thought I was doing a favor for a friend,” Fleming said in a letter to the court. “I never contemplated the worst possible outcome. This grievous failure will haunt me forever.”
His deliveries included 25 vials for $6,000 four days before Perry’s death.
Iwamasa would inject Perry from that batch on Oct. 28, 2023, and hours later he found the actor dead. A medical examiner’s report found that Perry died from the acute effects of ketamine, a surgical anesthetic, and drowning was a secondary cause.
Fleming can technically get 25 years in prison, but it’s very unlikely it will be anywhere near that much.
His lawyers say he has undergone a “transformative” rehabilitation since Perry’s death.
“I will accept my punishment with humility and spend the rest of my life working to become worthy of forgiveness,” Fleming’s letter said.
Iwamasa is the last defendant to be sentenced in two weeks.
Perry, who died at 54, became one of the biggest stars of his generation as Chandler Bing on “Friends,” NBC’s culture-changing sitcom that ran from 1994 to 2004.
An auction of his valuables including “Friends” memorabilia will go to benefit the foundation founded in his name soon after his death.
